Masteries

Offense:
21

Defense:
9

Utility:
0

This build is exceptionally strong on Twisted Treeline, but not to be overlooked for Summoner's Rift. By scoring critical hits on every swing of your Judgment, you get the thrill of watching their health drop below 50% in one skill. Enjoy having a ridiculous movement speed, attack speed, and not to mention 100% Crit Chance. This build is by far, the strongest DPS Garen build available.

Summoner SpellsIgnite

Allows for early game tower diving with ease. The combination of Ignite and Demacian Justice is ridiculously powerful. With no worry at all, I can easily take someone from 50% to 0% with ignite, followed by a Demacian Justice. In 3v3, this proves to be exceptionally powerful, allowing me to overthrow the lane, score a turret kill very early, and begin eating the rest of the team as if they wanted to feed me.Exhaust

When you solo lane with Garen in 3v3, there is no doubt that Exhaust will get you early game kills. The sheer control provided by Exhaust/Judgement is devastating. By level 6 I usually have a 2 or 3 kills, which makes it only easier to start controlling the map. Exhaust will allow you to dominate early game, and by doing so, will grant you more money and levels mid-late game.

Other Good Summoner Spell OptionsGhost

Ghost compliments your Judgement extremely well. Combined with the speed boost provided by Decisive strike, it is near impossible to escape Judgement's full damage. Although this is very powerful, Exhaust does nearly the same thing, snaring them along with your Decisive strike's speed boost. Not only that, but exhaust provides more team utility for obvious reasons (snare, blind, armor/magic resist reduced). Only choose ghost if, for some reason, you are not good with exhausting.Cleanse

Cleanse is a great spell to have it many situations. I find little to no-use for it on Twisted Treeline as escaping ganks is extremely easy. However, on Summoner's Rift, Cleanse is a better choice than ignite for the simple fact that Teamfights are 5v5, and having 5 other people is a huge potential for some crowd control.Smite

On Twisted Treeline, Smite can prove worthy to your team. Smite allows you to easily control Lizard and Dragon (which provide global gold an exp, on top of amazing buffs). When your team is constantly receiving bonus gold and exp, it makes it even easier to out level and itemize better than your opponents.

SkillsPerseverance - Garen will regenerate .5% of his maximum health per second after not receiving damage for 7 seconds.

This passive is what makes Garen so durable in a lane early game. With this passive, combined with Health Potions, will allow you to avoid basing for a very long time. My first base usually consists of buying my Boots of Swiftness and Brutalizer because of how long I stay there and farm minions/champions. In the top lane of Twisted Treeline, you can easily overthrow the other laner and score an early turret kill, as well as multiple champion kills if you know what you are doing.

Decisive Strike - Garen's next attack strikes a vital area of his foe, dealing bonus damage and silencing them.
Garen gains a 15/20/25/30/35% speed boost for 2 seconds. His next attack deals 40/60/80/100/120 bonus damage and silences his target for 2.5 seconds.

Cooldown - 11/10/9/8/7 seconds
Cost - No Cost
Range - Self

This is a complimentary skill to your Judgement. There are 2 ways to utilize this skill for your judgement based on whether or not they have a Knockback/Stun/Airborne.

Enemy DOES have an airborne/knock-back/stun: Allow your silence to hit first before using Judgement. By using your silence, you can freely judgement on an Alistar without getting pushed away, or a Sion without getting Stunned while he walks away.

Enemy DOES NOT have an airborne/knock-back/stun: This is an ideal situation. With no way to stop your Judgement, you can freely use your Decisive Strike's speed boost to get off a Judgement on the enemy with relative ease.

Remember to use Decisive Strike's speed boost to escape if necessary, combined with Judgement's snare-immunity, you can really save yourself in a gank situation.

Courage - Garen's kills increase his armor and magic resistance. He may also activate this ability to give himself a damage reducing shield.
Passive: Garen's armor and magic resist are permanently increased by 0.5 every time he kills an enemy unit. This bonus is maxed at 7/14/21/28/35.

Active: Garen places a defensive shield on himself for the next 2/2.5/3/3.5/4 seconds, decreasing all damage taken by 35%.

Cooldown - 30/27/24/21/18 seconds
Cost - No Cost
Range - Self

Courage allows you to tower dive early game for a kill, while reducing a lot of the damage you would have taken. Use this skill as often as possible when it comes to tower diving, fighting solo, and team fights when focused. This skill is also a great counter to some things such as Karthus or Nunu's ultimate. The passive isn't super amazing since it is the last thing you max out, but it makes a difference throughout the whole game. Free armor and magic resist doesn't hurt!Judgment - Garen performs a dance of death with his sword, dealing damage around him and becoming immune to slowing and root effects for 3 seconds.
Garen rapidly spins his sword around his body for 3 seconds, removing and making him immune to all roots and slows, dealing physical damage (15/35/55/75/95 plus 35% of his attack damage) to enemy units in the area every 0.5 seconds. This ability does half damage to minions, and it can scale off of your critical hit stat to deal bonus damage.

Cooldown - 15/14/13/12/11 seconds
Cost - No Cost
Range - Melee

Unforunately, you do not proc on-hit effects from items/buffs but, it is considered as a spell so blinds will not affect you. Not to mention, it grants you immunity to snares. This skill is the core of Garen. Allowing you absolutely destroy multiple targets with a mass amount of AoE damage. Paired with Decisive Strike's speed boost, you can gank opponents, tower dive, and turn the tide of a team battle with ease. Remember to appropriately use your Decisive Strike with Judgement, and never forget to use Judgement to escape from snares when you trying to avoid a gank or catch up to a fleeing enemy.

In the right hands, Judgement is over powered. Use it as best as you can.

Demacian Justice - Garen calls upon the might of Demacia to deal a finishing blow to an enemy champion that deals damage based upon how much life his target has missing.
Garen calls upon the might of Demacia to attempt to execute an enemy champion, dealing 175/350/525 damage plus 1 damage for every 3.5/3/2.5 health they are missing.

Cooldown - 140/120/100 seconds
Cost - No Cost
Range - 400

This skill will allow you to tower dive, in combination with ignite, fairly well. Early game tower diving thanks to Demacian Justice is a true game winner. I have near single-handedly won 3v3s because of my ability to push towers, tower dive, and then kill the tower afterwards. Truely amazing. Never use this skill as an opener, it completely ruins the bonus damage. Getting off your Judgement/Decisive Strike first will prove very useful. Not to mention, this is a great anti kill steal tool. Using this when someone is around 40% will near-guarantee a kill. Pay close attention to high HP tanks especially, they are extremely vulnerable to your ultimate.

Masteries

21/9/0 allows you to benefit greatly from your items and runes. Added Crit Chance, Crit Damage, Damage, Armor Pen, Mage Pen, and some much needed CDR. Grabbing nimbleness will benefit you greatly with the amount of dodge recieved from 2 Phantom Dancers.

Note: 15% Magic Pen will help greatly with your Ultimate and is well worth the loss of 1% Attack Speed.

RunesGreater Quintessence of DesolationGreater Mark of Desolation

Armor Penetration benefits you too much to give up. Taking anything else over Armor Penetration for Quintessences is a DPS Loss. Health Quintessences are not necessary as Garen, you have enough survivability early game with your movement speed and snare immunity. Use your brain and eyeballs to recognize incoming ganks, and harrass when it will be marginally in your favor. Taking too much damage just to poke someone ones isn't always a great idea.

Greater Seal of MaliceGreater Glyph of Malice

With the removal of base Critical Chance and Critical Chance per level, it is more important to pick up some early game Crit Chance from runes. Having almost 10% Crit early game will make a large difference in your damage output. Crit damage is useless if you can't crit. Don't sacrifice early-mid game for late game.

Items

Core

The 6th item will depend on what you are playing against, and the time you purchase it will be up to your best judgment. Some of the recommended items would be:- If Crowd Control is a threat, change your Boots of Swiftness to Mercury's Treads.- If you are rolling the other team like I do, Sword of the Occult will be money well spent. This item is cheap and effective. A worthy investment if you plan on steamrolling to victory asap.- 75 Attack Damage to beef up all your damage. Since you are already at 100% crit, make those crits stronger. The passive effect is very useful with your high attack speed from your Phantom Dancers and Ghostblade. The passive wont be applied by your Judgment unfortunately.- 100 Attack Damage when maxxed out and lots of life steal. An excellent choice considering how much damage your auto attacks deal and how often you swing.] - If the other team has been focusing you at the start of team fights, this item can make the difference between a win and a loss of a team fight for obvious reasons.

League of Legends is a team based, real time strategy game set in a mythical world of swords & magic where epic battles decide the fate of mystical nations. Game players take on the role of a Summoner who conjures and controls champions to fight for them at the Institute of War. During game play champions gain experience and items to enhance their skills and abilities. How players develop and play their champions can be the difference between a crushing defeat or a glorious victory!